


White

by moz17



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: American Sign Language, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27062350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moz17/pseuds/moz17
Summary: "But there was only white now."
Relationships: Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench (Fargo)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	White

The walls were white – as were the bedsheets, the gown he had been dressed in, and the plastic boards attached to his bed. The storm had stopped, so the view was clear through the window, unimpeded by the blizzard which had filled the air and covered the land. The snow remained, and everything outside was white too, stretching on emptily.

This emptiness left him dull, lethargic. He loved colours, and textures, their variants and differences, the impact of intense hues or clashing shades, the sensation of worn, soft leather or the thickness and weight of fur. White didn't give him anything. He liked black though, its unyielding starkness, its depth and richness. Empty white did serve to highlight all the more how powerful black was, as a block, a streak, drawing the eye. White wasn't alive to him, it was unnatural, an absence waiting to be coloured in. White was cold, a body drained of blood. Even the sign for white demonstrated this characteristic – hand flat against your chest, then pulled away, bringing your fingertips together in a pinch. [white] took something out of you, out of your chest, you went from contact and touching to breaking that, distance, the open fingers narrowed into a cramped sharp hold. It seemed to be consistent in other languages too, where white was signed by taking something away. He had encountered another sign language where white was indicated by touching your index finger to your neck and pulling away in a sharp flick, as if pulling away from where your lifeblood was, cutting something off, pulling something out. He didn't like white and the signs for this perfectly encapsulated why.

His right hand lay uselessly by his side, his left hand handcuffed to the bed rail, awkwardly held and bent at the wrist. White was absence. White was pure, leaving no traces of what had been there previously.

His partner had such a quirky way of signing and Wrench had been very fond of his accent, even if he had quite often imitated him, leaving Numbers irked by his partner's mirth at his unusual emphases. He would never get to see those quirky movements again, they had disappeared forever. He had seen his hands develop from childish digits to solid and assured hands; now he would not get to see those hands moving into middle age or beyond. He would not get to see his face changing over the years, lines appearing, deepening, his body changing, his hair too. Only on his partner would he have tolerated (more than tolerated) grey and white hair. 

He had been left in the snow, in the white, alone, as his lifeblood ebbed from him. This whiteness settled over Wrench's mind, clinging to his neck and stealing into his chest. He felt barely there, barely in this world, he was becoming paler and fainter, fading but not enough. It did not bring him any closer to his partner, only further away from here, from himself. The witness to his life was gone and with him that past, that self, it was blank. He wished he had something of Numbers' to hold onto but those things were gone too, considered unimportant by others. Even before he had been told, he had known that his partner was gone. He could no longer feel him, he had blinked out. All that was left of his partner was in him now, and his memories. He moved his writsts awkwardly, one palm up, the other turned down, before turning them over the other way, a fish rolling over onto its back when it dies. He repeated the gesture, watching his hands against the white bedclothes. White was lifeless, abstract, without meaning. Black, the sign made by moving your fingertip across your forehead, for him, meant intensity, heat, like low-burning embers. The sign [black] spoke to him of contact, being seared into his memory, black was sharing the dark, being alone together. But there was only white now.


End file.
